With job demands increasingly coming under legal scrutiny, here’s how to assess whether a role has become unsustainable, causing it to become a psychosocial risk – and how to respond when employees raise workload concerns.

In some roles, long hours, competing priorities and constant deadlines are framed as simply ‘part of the job’. But at what point do those pressures start to put employees’ wellbeing and an organisation at risk?

High job demands are the first hazard listed in Safe Work Australia’s guidelines on psychosocial risks, and the issue is increasingly surfacing in cases before the Fair Work Commission (FWC).

In a case heard last month, an employee argued that she had been compelled to resign due to excessive job demands. She provided evidence that her workload had increased significantly in the months leading up to her resignation, and claimed her employer had not addressed her concerns about this.

However, the employer was able to demonstrate in its response that it had made efforts to manage the situation, including accommodating her requests for time off and extending deadlines where possible. As a result, the FWC found the employer had not required an unreasonable workload that  left the employee with no choice but to resign.

While the legal threshold for constructive dismissal was not met, the FWC’s analysis highlights how high job demands are being tested through different legal lenses.

According to Fay Calderone, Partner at law firm Hall and Wilcox and author of Broken to Safe, the introduction of psychosocial safety obligations is already having an impact on how workloads are scrutinised.

“[The legislation] takes it out of the domain of being a performance or overwhelm issue at an individual level and puts a safety and risk management lens on it,” she says. “It absolutely means we need to be more proactive in managing job design, role clarity and workloads.” 

Below, Calderone provides insight on when excessive job demands can expose employers to legal liability, and how to respond effectively when workload concerns arise.

When do job demands become unreasonable?

Unrealistic workloads become a psychosocial risk when they require sustained, high levels of physical, mental or emotional effort to do the job.

Safe Work Australia says high physical, mental and emotional demands could include:

• working long hours or without enough breaks
• physically tiring tasks (e.g. lifting heavy boxes or digging trenches)
• having too much to do in too little time
• not having the right skills or training for the task (e.g. junior workers given complex tasks)
• not having systems to prevent individual errors, particularly when they may have high consequences (e.g. expecting workers to memorise complex processes and not providing written prompts)
• exposure to aggression, violence, harassment or bullying
• supporting people in distress (e.g. giving bad news).

In order for an employee to prove that an unrealistic workload drove them to resign, as with the case above, they’d need to show a lack of viable avenues to resolve the issue. If the employee doesn’t take steps to raise the issue before resigning, it’s very hard to make a case for constructive dismissal.

However, while the existence of a robust complaint management process may weaken a constructive dismissal claim, it does not eliminate psychosocial risk.

“[Psychosocial risk legislation] takes the onus off individual workers to make complaints and places the obligations on leaders and organisations to scan the work environment,” says Calderone.

“[They must] carefully manage workloads and ensure appropriate role clarity, fair change management processes and access to organisational justice – such as fair and transparent allocation of work and access to promotions, opportunities and rewards.”

When scanning the work environment, some of the risks employers should look out for include: 

• Peaks in workload that create sustained pressure rather than short-term demand
• Resourcing gaps such as staff shortages or high levels of leave that shift additional work onto remaining employees, creating not only increased workloads but competing priorities and reduced role clarity
• Unclear expectations that make it difficult to manage tasks effectively
• External pressures, such as increased demand or operational changes, that change the nature or volume of work.

Left unaddressed, these risks can quietly erode the sustainability of a role over time, increasing the likelihood of harm and/or legal liability.

An employee has flagged an unmanageable workload. What’s next?

If an employee raises concerns about their workload, employers’ responses can be make-or-break.

Employers need to move beyond surface-level fixes and properly assess the situation, says Calderone. She suggests starting by assessing the employee’s position description – both on paper and in practice.

“Assuming that it was a reasonable role to start off with, [we’d be looking at] what has changed or evolved in terms of the workflow, or any pressures or external factors which may have increased risk or made the position unsustainable as it evolved,” she says.

This kind of assessment should help employers determine whether the root cause relates to the individual, workforce management issues, environmental factors or the system of work. 

“It may be that at the end of that analysis you determine there isn’t a safety or sustainability issue, but rather a capability or performance issue. This may become clear if there are several other people in exactly the same role with the same factors at play that are performing well.”

If this is the case, employers may identify a training or development need to ensure the person is better equipped and supported to perform their role.

“Of course, what’s fraught with danger is pivoting to a performance discussion after someone has raised a complaint, because of the risk of an adverse action claim. But that’s the issue with psychosocial hazards – it can be really difficult to detangle the safety issues and the complaint from any underpinning performance issues.”

On the other hand, If the assessment reveals a safety issue, the focus should shift from the individual to the system of work – whether that’s resourcing gaps, competing demands or a lack of clarity.  

Short-term fixes, such as extending deadlines or allowing time off, may not be sufficient if the underlying issues are systemic or prolonged. In some cases, it may be necessary to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment to identify systemic risk factors and implement longer-term controls, such as reassessing the resourcing mix in a team or formally redistributing certain duties.

You can find a step-by-step guide to conducting a psychosocial risk investigation here.

“[Psychosocial risk legislation] takes the onus off individual workers to make complaints and places the obligations on leaders and organisations to scan the work environment.” – Fay Calderone, Partner, Hall and Wilcox

Systemic controls to manage job demands

A common concern among employers is that psychosocial safety laws may limit their ability to stretch employees or maintain high-performance standards.

However, managing the psychosocial risks of high job demands is not necessarily about changing the targets or the substance of the work itself, says Calderone – often, it’s about scrutinising the way work is designed, prioritised and supported.

“We need to get back to fundamentals from an organisational psychology perspective to help individuals cope with the environments they’re currently in and equip them with the tools to thrive,” she says.

That might include improving role clarity, adjusting workflows to reduce bottlenecks and embedding clearer frameworks to distinguish between critical and non-critical tasks and identify lower-value work that can be deferred or removed altogether.

In many cases, providing employees with greater autonomy to manage competing demands can help reduce the psychological load created by constant urgency, says Calderone.

“Once you take that pressure away, people are more likely to perform effectively in the role. It reduces risk, it increases output and increases satisfaction,” she says. “When people feel like they’re empowered and thriving, that [has] a contagious positive effect through the workforce.”

Read AHRI’s article on how to differentiate between stress, stretch and psychosocial risk.

All information, content and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. The contents of this article do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.